Of course, human drivers are involved in deadly accidents every day. But is humanity ready to hand over deadly machinery to robots unless they are perfect? The loss of a life is tough pill for people to swallow when it happens at the hands of technology.

However well over a million people die annually in car crashes. My guess is that later in this century, humans will be banned from driving in some locations. One day our grandkids may even wonder how we ever allowed humans to drive. But we’re clearly a long way away from that.

It’s in Uber’s best interests to keep developing self-driving technology. But incidents like this may just kill the program until the technology exists to support it without making deadly mistakes.

Of course other big companies, including Google and car manufacturers, are also heavily investing in self-driving technology. It will be interesting to see how accidents like this affect public opinion and local laws on autonomous driving.

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54 Comments On "Woman Killed By Self-Driving Uber; Is This The End Of Uber’s Self-Driving Experiment?"

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matovu

great analysis.

Your write up made me think positively about this. Uber should hire a person like you.

great.

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March 19, 2018 1:39 pm

Eric from Dallas

You are getting way ahead of the facts here. Reports are the woman was crossing the street outside of the crosswalk. If the robot was not at fault (not yet determined) then it is a PR problem, not a technical one.

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March 19, 2018 1:40 pm

Dan

Not using a crosswalk is not a valid excuse for a deadly accident. Especially when it comes to prototype technology being allowed to operate on the streets.

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March 19, 2018 1:42 pm

Ab

+1

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March 19, 2018 1:44 pm

AM

100%
While society has accepted “human error” it has yet to accept “non-human error”…

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March 19, 2018 1:48 pm

Dan

That’s the same reason why there will be humans in cockpits for years to come. We’re not ready to accept an accident caused by a robot.

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March 19, 2018 1:49 pm

eg

Exactly.

Saying that crossing outside of a crosswalk excuses taking a life, is saying that jaywalking is a capital offense. That makes no sense.

I daresay that Google (Alphabet) is more cautious and ahead of the game with their AI. They aren’t a one pony shop, they have lots of resources and data collection (including many cell phones that collect data location, etc. etc.) and they harness all of that into developing their AI. The reason they give away so much technology for free, is that they use the data and experience gathered, to develop more technology that makes them money.

The one area I disagree with @Dan here is on the timeline. I don’t think it will be our grandkids, but even our younger kids, will look at humans driving cars as we might look at horse drawn carriages. Their a novelty, and available next to Central Park, but you wouldn’t expect to have one in front of your house, or to drive one yourself.

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March 19, 2018 1:50 pm

Dan

Ironically I changed the post from “kids” to “grandkids” before publishing.

I’d guess that my kids will have the option, while my grandkids may just see human driven cars as a novelty.

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March 19, 2018 1:54 pm

Work-for-ur-muny

Heh! I just came here to post the same thing as @eg. I see it happening much faster than what you suggest in the post.

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March 19, 2018 2:19 pm

zalmy

Agree completely. Been saying for months that human drivers will be banned within a decade.. though honestly, the timeline might be more like 20 years. The fatality rate due to human error is astounding.. I find it hard to believe AI would come close

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March 19, 2018 4:34 pm

zalmy

Truthfully, I don’t believe human driving is really justifiable now, in terms of GDP production, when a safer transportation system is completely possible (like trains). Anyone have the numbers on GDP growth versus mortality due to auto accidents today?

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March 19, 2018 4:36 pm

Eric from Dallas

You are right, that alone is not an excuse – but we don’t yet know if she stepped in front of the car when it was too late to stop – aka texting while walking. There’s no need to speculate, it will be clear from the video.

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March 19, 2018 1:58 pm

Dan

Speculation is what makes us human 🙂

Of course fault will matter to determine how soon these cars will be back on the road. But even if there was fault, would a human have caused the same accident? How are we as a society prepared to deal with autonomous car taking over the roads?

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March 19, 2018 2:01 pm

Avi

Computers can speculate too.

In fact, the recent “SPECTRE” CPU bug is due to a flaw in a type of process called “Speculative Execution”

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March 19, 2018 4:33 pm

GTR

Unfortunately there are not (and will not be) daily headlines stating “Computer Driven Automobile Responsible for Incident Free Trip”

We’ll get there in my lifetime, but if you ask the people needlessly dying on the roads everyday they’d probably say “not soon enough.”

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March 19, 2018 1:50 pm

Eli

The question that needs to be asked is how many Self-Driving miles/hours were driven before this fatality occurred and how many human miles/hours are driven for each fatality.
A Self-Driving fatality doesn’t mean that the technology is worse then humans, fatalities occur with human drivers as well.

It may be that this technology has already outperformed humans even with this fatality.

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March 19, 2018 1:52 pm

Dan

I wouldn’t be surprised if it is already outperforming humans.
I just don’t think society is currently equipped to handle robotic error as a cause of human death.

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March 19, 2018 1:56 pm

Eli

I certainly hope you are wrong, because that is absolutely ridiculous.
Lets put it in simple words: what is better – 2 deaths by human or 1 death by machine. I thing that any sane human would opt for the second choice.

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March 19, 2018 2:39 pm

Future

No, it does not mean the end, and self driving vehicles are still the future.

The US can’t afford to be technologically behind countries like China, and China will most certainly move forward with this technology no matter how many people they have to run over.

We really don’t have a choice.

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March 19, 2018 1:54 pm

Neil

As if the average human driver of an Uber is paying attention? When you get a traffic light and car dives across three lanes of traffic to get into the left turning only lane, or a car advances straight through a red light when only the turning light has a green arrow, 9 times out of 10 its an Uber driver who does not know the neighborhood and is just following his phone.

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March 19, 2018 1:55 pm

Dan

The only difference is that as a society, we’re OK with the chance of dying in a car accident caused by human error.

But are we OK with that car accident if there’s nobody behind the wheel?

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March 19, 2018 1:57 pm

Neil

Nope, I agree that self driving cars are problematic. I just think that uber drivers themselves are often a nuisance and occasionally a menace.

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March 19, 2018 2:45 pm

eg

It’s because we have this innate need to put blame on someone (or something). I also don’t think our legal system (or insurance industry) is yet ready for autonomous driving cars.

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March 19, 2018 4:41 pm

mileagejunkie

Autonomous doesn’t equate no deaths, that’s where AI ethics come in. While this isn’t at play yet, I’m interested to know how the accident happened because there was a driver behind the wheel. Even though it was in autonomous mode the driver didn’t have time to stop, it’s only a matter of time until they release dashcam and driver’s footage.
Regarding self-driving cars, I feel like we’re skipping a step which would be for cars to communicate with each other. Just imagine what potential could be unlocked if on top of that it was linked to the car’s navigation system; it could reduce accidents and traffic tremendously.

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March 19, 2018 1:56 pm

aek

from where things are headed ,seems our grandchildren will go to an amusement park chol hamoed to get online to self drive a car

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March 19, 2018 2:00 pm

Dan

They’ll go and drive Altimas, Camrys, and Odysseys around the track like we do classic cars 🙂

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March 19, 2018 2:02 pm

Babka

Very sad, how incidental that it happened right after Tomb Raider was released. If you haven’t watched it, very scary concept of AI getting out of hand.

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March 19, 2018 2:04 pm

Dan

Black Mirror is the ultimate AI and humanity getting out of hand if you’re into that. Just skip the pilot episode IMHO.

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March 19, 2018 2:06 pm

Babka

Thanks for the suggestion!

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March 19, 2018 2:12 pm

esther

@dan oh, absolutely.. if you want to get addicted to yet another series, check out the White Bear episode

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March 19, 2018 2:15 pm

Dan

I’ve seen all of the Black Mirror episodes and White Bear is definitely a jaw dropper with the surprise ending.
What do you mean by another series?

Don’t forget part of their technology will be speaking with our phones.. eventually the car will tell by the signals if a phone is coming too close to a car too fast, it might slow down automatically, like it slows down in traffic.

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March 19, 2018 2:41 pm

Nate

Dan,
One comment. You note that the Uber driver gets most of the fee from the drive. I know that to be incorrect first hand. When the Uber driver completes his trip he gets a notification how much money he made. On multiple occasions I have checked with the driver to see what he got compared to what I paid, the driver receives well under 50% of the total fare paid.

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March 19, 2018 2:43 pm

Dan

Your anecdotal evidence (which varies based on pre-ride estimates for riders and actual time required for the driver to complete the ride) doesn’t match the overall reality, which is somewhere between 60-75% of booking revenue paid to drivers:

Your all asking the wrong question. If the car was human operated would the woman still be dead? She could have jumped out in front of the car.

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March 19, 2018 2:52 pm

Dan

Maybe, maybe not. We’ll need to wait for the video to be released and even then it may be murky.

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March 19, 2018 3:01 pm

pau

dan where are you going for pesach? sorry for sounding nosy just curious.and are no rush credits received from no rush shipping on amazon able to be combined from different accounts into one account?

Reply

March 19, 2018 2:52 pm

Dan

Lol, home sweet home.
No.

Reply

March 19, 2018 3:01 pm

pau

have a wonderful yom tov and thank you for all the information and deals gained from reading and absorbing on this site

Reply

March 19, 2018 3:13 pm

Mark

“But incidents like this may just kill the program until the technology exists to support it without making deadly mistakes.”

The only way to make that technology exist is to keep testing it in the real world.

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March 19, 2018 2:53 pm

Dan

True, but will Tempe, AZ continue to agree to be a guinea pig or will they ban autonomous driving after this?

This may be the first pedestrian killed by autonomous driving, but I doubt it will be the last.

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March 19, 2018 3:02 pm

Ma_Sands

Case in point (though I’m not sure just which point : ) Quite, quite some years ago, back towards the beginning of this century, in the little church me and my seven youngsters went to in far eastern, central MN, there was an elderly couple we loved dearly, who spent much of each year traveling. Just before Christmas one year, they were in California. The story came back that it was a dark night, and they were walking, and the lady started to cross the road at a dark point, some distance between two street-lighted crossing-corners. The man saw the car coming, and ran out to try to save his wife, but the car, coming at 50 mph, the young driver’s eyes still somewhat hampered by the lighted corner he’d passed some ways back, struck them both, killing them instantly, devastating the young driver, as well as the many, many folks who loved that couple.

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March 19, 2018 3:33 pm

john vilberg

My favorite corporate BS “We’re fully cooperating” wow so impressed..like you have a choice in the matter

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March 19, 2018 6:03 pm

David

Oh boy!!
As of today if you have a android phone Google knows everything about you
So just imagine autonomous car they know exactly where I’m going when what it’s scary !!
How about hacking carjacking all this stuff oh man i get the chills

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March 19, 2018 6:22 pm

CB

My car has technology to help it sense certain dangerous conditions and hit the brakes. I have found that in snowy conditions I get an alert that the system failed and is not operating. The failure is not something that builds up, it is just gone. Are self driving cars going to drive blind till they can slow down and stop when they lose their vision/

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March 19, 2018 6:37 pm

YitzyS

Sometimes social conditioning is so potent that even with technology to support self driving cars, it may only become illegal for human’s to drive when the generation of politicians were born in the era of driverless cars. For us, it will always intrinsically remain a novelty, and therefore, it can only become illegal for humans to drive in a future generation.

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